


Venal Ambushers

by NXTDNDIMHO



Series: NXTDNDIMHO [6]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), WWE NXT - Fandom, World Wrestling Entertainment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22869295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NXTDNDIMHO/pseuds/NXTDNDIMHO
Summary: NXT Wrestling Fan is a podcast about falling in love with wrestling. It follows NXT starting 22 May 2013. It's a good show made by lovely people.Enzo Amore is a shit goblin and Collin Cassidy manages to be both ridiculously tall and completely avoid notice. They appear on the show to talk shit and get hit, which is a constant delight to me. It has fired my singular obsession.This work came after Episode XV: The Whiny Snake Flag
Series: NXTDNDIMHO [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627138





	Venal Ambushers

That last one was pretty long, so think of this one more as a pallet cleanser, a sort of low-stakes, morally uncomplicated tidbit between meatier courses; maybe a cartoon between a double-feature, a running sub-series doled out in 2-3 minute bits to fill up time or break up pacing in a larger, more complex story.

I think my appreciation for Enzo Amore and Big Cass crystallized a few episodes of NXT WF ago when they were compared to a Tom and Jerry cartoon, where there's no larger story being told; no momentum, only status quo. With the end result more of less known, the only thing to do is enjoy watching them prance out to do their shtick and see what amusing knocks the creative team has in store for them this time.

As Miles has said, Enzo Amore is good at many things and none of them are wrestling. He has a strong character - strongly off-putting, to be fair, but flavorful and distinct, like vinegar, but good in small doses, as an enhancement and not an entree. I find his entrance monologues pleasant in a similar way to how Rudy Ray Moore is fun to listen to: it has a nice sense of rhythm and the occasional rhyme. They also communicate exactly who and what the character of Enzo Amore is: A small, yappy dog. Put him in the ring, and he's mostly good at being thrown around.

Cass, on the other hand... I'm not even entirely sure what to write. Dude's 7-Foot-tall and yet makes zero impact. He has the sort of presence that makes you aware that he's there but also not particularly interested in the subject. The most interesting thing about him is his relation to early Butt Watch, because an outline of the Manhattan Skyline is a big choice to make. That actually serves as a decent simile for Colin Cassidy: extremely tall, but not terribly distinct.

And I get why these two are loathed. They suck. They are garbage boiz that have about 1 1/4 personalities between the two of them. It is satisfying to see them get punched. But, for reasons mentioned above, I do appreciate the work that they put do insofar as it goes. They are a pacing consideration, and I would say a pretty alright one.

In their roles as pacing considerations, I figured that it probably wasn't worth the time to make full sheets for them, so I basically just transcribed some stats from the Monster Manual. Enzo Amore has the stats of a Goblin Boss and Colin Cassidy is a Bugbear, which are both goblinoids and here we go into the land of D&D.

The most popular things for a DM to throw up against low-level players are giant rats, human (or more general humanoid) bandits, or members of the triune of low-level monsters: kobolds, gnolls, and goblins. Kobolds are garbage lizards and are great for DMs who like to use a lot of traps. Gnolls are hyena people who eat other humanoids and are just roundly gross. Goblins are feisty trash boiz that might talk a big game, but are only really good for menial labor and being cannon fodder. I like using goblins because it's fun to temp my players into dispatching these pathetic jerks, who make a lot of noise but are mostly just trying to draw a paycheck. Also, I get to do a real dumb voice that my wife hates.

That context made Goblin an easy choice for Enzo (though I did swap his +6 in Stealth for a +4 in Performance), but I knew I needed something a bit taller for Big Cass. Fortunately, D&D's Goblinoids come in three sizes, because rule of threes: Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Bugbears. No clue why the big ones are called Bugbears, but here we are. Their Monster Manual entry describes them as, "Venal Ambushers," who move with surprising stealth and, "are fond of setting ambushes and flee when outmatched." 

As a technical concern, Monsters in D&D don't have levels, but they are assigned a Challenge Rating, or CR. While CR is a wildly relative measure and is often hilariously mismatched, it ideally indicates that four Player Characters of a level equal to a monster's CR ought to have a decent fight that would consume resources but leave the PCs in good enough condition to continue adventuring. Both Goblin Bosses and Bugbears have a challenge rating of 1. Doing some background math, it makes perfect sense that Enzo and Big Cass were able to beat Mason Ryan, assuming that he's something like a 4th or 5th level character on a cold dice night. If you have any more questions about Challenge Rating... I'm not the person to ask, but I have had decent success using [Kobold Fight Club](https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder) to build encounters because it has all the monsters and does all the math.

Finally, I had trouble deciding on a title for this. I've decided to put some of the other titles I considered (and why I rejected them) here:

"Enzo Amore is good at many things and wrestling is none of them," -Miles Schneiderman (I couldn't have two Miles quotes in a row or it sets a president)

I Tried to Type "Sawft" and My Browser Kept Autocorrecting (Kinda cumbersome)

Badaboom, Realist Guys In the Room (if I made the title too explicitly about Enzo and Cass, Bob wouldn't click on the link)

Zero Dimes ("If we had a dime for every time me and Cass got beat up as kids, we would have ZERO DIMES," [synchronized gesture to indicate zero dimes] is both objectively funny and extremely untrue, but it was too deep a cut to make the title).


End file.
